“We are pleased to welcome DARPA and the SubT Challenge competitors to the Satsop Business Park for this innovative use of our assets,” stated Port Commissioner Phil Papac in a press release. “We are proud to partner with DARPA to host the event and look forward to welcoming everyone to Grays Harbor.”

The SubT Challenge was created to better equip warfighters and first responders to explore uncharted underground environments that are too dangerous, dark, or deep to risk human lives. Qualifying teams from around the world will compete for prizes by deploying autonomous systems to navigate, search, and identify artifacts in the Reactor Building’s underground environment which was chosen to represent a human-made urban environment.